Best musical ‘Once' wins 8 Tony Awards

The bittersweet musical “Once” captured eight Tony Awards Sunday, including best musical direction, best lead actor in a musical and the top musical prize itself.

The Associated Press

The bittersweet musical “Once” captured eight Tony Awards Sunday, including best musical direction, best lead actor in a musical and the top musical prize itself.

The inventive play “Peter and the Starcatcher” was next with five awards.

Audra McDonald was named best lead actress in a musical and her “The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess” was named best musical revival.

Nina Arianda, a rising star, won best leading actress in a play, beating stiff competition from Tracie Bennett, Stockard Channing, Linda Lavin and Cynthia Nixon.

In perhaps the biggest shock of the night, James Corden nabbed the lead acting Tony Award in a play for his clownish turn in the British import “One Man, Two Guvnors.” He beat out the favorite, Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Death of a Salesman.”

“Clybourne Park,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning play about race and real estate, won the Tony Award for best play.

Bruce Norris' work, which riffs off Lorraine Hansberry's 1959 drama “A Raisin in the Sun,” is set in the same house in one Chicago neighborhood. The first act takes place in 1959 and the second is set in 2009.